Genko-An 64287 (Darmstadt 2012)

"to see something / to hear something" Gertrude Stein

"In the hall of the Buddhist temple GENKO-AN in Kyoto (Japan) there are two differently shaped windows with views of the same garden: a square window - the “window of confusion” - and a round window - the “window of enlightenment”. With “Genko-An 12353”, an installation in the Gropiusstadt, Berlin, for the exhibition “X-Wohnungen” in 2007, I reversed this principle. Set to two identical soundtracks, two identical ‘windows’ in a skyscraper faced two different directions and presented views of apartment blocks and the sky, respectively. “Genko-An 64287” is divided into a video-based and a sound-based installation in two identical water reservoirs. For one of them – to see something – I collected images, for the other – to hear something – I made a composition featuring sounds from the orchestra piece “Walden” and ‘peculiar’ voices of people who inspired and accompanied me in my work during the last years: voices of artists, friends and complete strangers." Heiner Goebbels